INTERVENTION BY THE HOLY SEE
AT THE 45th SESSION OF THE COMMISSION
FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
OF THE U.N. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL ON:

"Priority theme: promoting full employment and
decent work for all"

ADDRESS OF H.E. MSGR. CELESTINO MIGLIORE*

New York Thursday, 8
February 2007

Mr. Chairman,

Since work is the essential key to the whole social
question, and is the condition not only for social development but for the
cultural and moral development of all of us, the theme of full employment and
decent work has a perennial importance for the Commission for Social
Development. It is one which is rightly reviewed regularly, in order to judge
progress towards its achievement and to consider further means for its
promotion.

My delegation is pleased to support much of what has been suggested in the
Secretary-General’s report regarding the ongoing challenges in this field. A
constant policy goal at national and international levels must surely be the
creation of a balance between economic development on the one hand and social
justice on the other, enshrined in law, which protects workers and promotes
their rights, especially those who earn very little for their labour or those
whose work is potentially unsafe or humanly unrewarding. In that sense, full
respect for the principles and rights contained in the 1998 ILO Declaration is
still the cornerstone for creating such a balance. Recent years have witnessed a
steady globalization and interconnection of markets with a growing fluidity in
trade and in the sourcing of production in countries far from where goods are
consumed. Often motivated principally by the pressure for higher profits, this
latter aspect of globalization has nevertheless brought work to many in the
south while leading to inevitable readjustments in the north, often towards
other sectors of employment. Now it falls to the international community and
governments to ensure both an enabling economic environment and the availability
of work which is decent and properly remunerated.

A very great number of workers would benefit from a fair outcome in the
negotiations of the WTO’s Doha Round. This chance currently risks being
squandered, but a farsighted breakthrough could still be made, in particular
regarding agricultural trade rules, to the benefit of many millions of the
world’s 1.1 billion agricultural workers, 60% of whom are in workforces with
little or no social safety nets. The evident consequences of such a shift for
northern economies would in turn have to be mitigated by the deployment of that
region’s much greater resources to assist those affected and to address
legitimate concerns for the way of life in the countryside.

Nowadays, equal pay for equal work seems obvious, but women are still too
often overlooked or undervalued in this regard, leading to discrimination
against them in both rich and poor countries. The equality of women and men
should be evident also in their treatment in the workplace, in salaries and in
the acquisition of pensions. The presence of women throughout the workplace can
only help to improve it, revealing and overcoming the contradictions present in
many societies, including those organized principally according to the criteria
of efficiency and productivity. Equality will be seen immediately through equal
pay for equal work, protection for working mothers and fairness in career
advancement.

Working parents, both women and men, should be assisted, if necessary by law,
to bring their own unique and irreplaceable contribution to the upbringing of
their children, to the evident benefit of the whole of society. It is also
important that men and women with families receive adequate and fair wages that
are sufficient to meet ordinary family needs, especially in view of their
responsibilities towards their children. A just wage will also eliminate the
necessity, sometimes forced upon the very poor, to require their children to
work, to the detriment of children’s education, their childhood and their growth
into well-adjusted adults. Beyond all other considerations, child labour
exploitation is a moral question: it is a violation of the dignity with which
every person, no matter how small or seemingly unimportant, is endowed.

Another category that deserves the special attention of the Commission is
that of the very poor, present in every country without exception. There is no
government, of however modest means, that should tolerate extreme poverty in
today’s world. Excluded from their right to work, shunned by those with work,
the extreme poor should in fact be the particular concern of every government
and every civilized society. The world is far too rich to let the scandal of
extreme poverty continue due to lack of imagination or politics of neglect.
Access to decent, safe and fulfilling work for the extreme poor is fundamental
to the achievement of social development.

Given the dramatic shift in the population pyramid in many countries,
governments would also do well to find ways to encourage older people to remain
in the job market. There should be greater flexibility in pension systems and
job markets so as to encourage the aged to contribute what they can to society
for as long as they are willing and able. Younger workers should also be
educated to appreciate, work with and respect the talents and experience that
only older people can bring to their work.

On a topic now related to that of ageing, migrants have become an important
source of labour. They not only earn a salary for themselves and their families
but, if allowed to do so by legislators and their electorates, they will also
become an important source of wealth for their host countries by maintaining
standards of living through their contribution to the host economy. Migrants are
often motivated by the simple wish to work in order to support their families.
They too deserve equal pay and equal protection under the law, not least because
the jobs they do are often the ones that no one else wants. Legal arrangements
should be made to allow families to reunite, not only for the sanity of family
life, but also to the social and moral benefit of the communities around them.
Too often a lack of normal family life leads to evils such as human trafficking
and prostitution on the margins of migrant communities. The market for such
modern slavery could be undermined by allowing families to live together in the
receiving country.

Work itself should be decent. The Holy See understands decent work as that
which is both properly remunerated and worthy of the human person. Work is a
right but it is also the duty of all people to contribute to the good of their
society and the whole human family. Work is dignified by the people who do it;
but it must also be dignified in itself.

Full employment and decent work cannot include work that is not as safe as
possible, justly remunerated or worthy of the human person. If work is an
essential part of our human vocation, only decent work in this sense can ever be
suitable for the promotion of human dignity and the achievement of social
development.